Transforming the nation's consciousness on race through the law, social science, and the arts.

Melanie Piech’s “16 Squares: the March on Washington”

Description from the artist:

From the March on Washington, fifty years ago, this piece takes the idea of footprints. Footprints are at once about presence and absence, their very existence revealing that their maker was once, but no longer is, there. The piece, through this notion of absence, the passage of people and of time that the footprints acknowledge, commemorates the March as an historical event. In addition, the piece uses these footprints to represent people and their presence, to reference a crowd from the past and the present, inviting the viewer to stand with this crowd, and through the questions asked, to examine what he believes and whether and under what circumstances he will act for others. The piece consists of sixteen 18” squares, ten steel and six cast in plastic with atomized bronze. Six of the steel squares have text etched into them. The six cast plastic and bronze squares contain the bottom imprints of six pairs of shoes. The piece occupies a 6’ square floor space and can be walked on.